Business Startup (Survival Kit Series) [Kindle Edition]

Deaver Brown (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This is the updated version of the best selling book in Hard Cover with Macmillan and Mass Market paperback with Ballantine since 1980. Also see the slightly older version, The Entrepreneur's Guide, also on Kindle, as well as the related audiobooks on audible.com, an Amazon company, which runs the Apple iTunes audiobook store as well as Amazon’s. Discount codes available to purchasers.

This book emphasizes the basics for entrepreneurs. Why do it? Does your temperament fit? If not, give it a pass and have a happier life.

And secondly, a focus on the basics to make a business work: sales, operations, delivery, and getting paid. Do those 4 well, the author says, and the rest will be much easier. Finances, professional advice, and great employees always support businesses that succeed in these fundamentals—think Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Dell, IBM, McDonald’s, and others.

Brown gives lots of gritty basic tips to make your ventures work.

The Chicago Tribune: “A good introduction to dreamers and budding business people.”
The Kirkus Reviews: “A succinct, instructive, often entertaining introduction to the rewards and risks of proprietorship…A productive labor of love.”

Or as Brown says, “If you don’t love it, don’t do it.”

The tracks say it all!

Business Survival Startup Kit
Author Deaver Brown
About the Survival Kit Series
About the Business Survival Kit
General Approach: About this ebook

Chapter One: Getting Started
Entrepreneurship as a Career Choice--Is it for You?
Why Avoid Business Startups
The Entrepreneurial Profile
How Do You Measure Up?
Small Companies as a Career Choice
Why Work in a Small Company
Why Not Work in a Small Company
Small Company Employee Profile: What's Needed

Chapter Two: Formation
Market Selection
Venture Capital
Appropriate Markets for You
Check Your Concept Out Against This Market Profile
Seven Sources of Innovative Opportunity
Business Model
Partners & Employees: Beware the Company You Keep
Employees
Selecting a Name
Incorporation & Setting Up Your Company
Investors
Buying a Business
Intellectual Property Negotiations
First Office
First Communications
What to Expect in the Early Days of Your Adventure

Chapter Three: Planning
20 Quick Tips
Executive Summaries & Business Plans
The Executive Summary: They Get Read
The Business Plan: They Get Filed
Making the Executive Summary & Business Plan Work for You

Chapter Four: Raising the Cash & Your Financial Structure
Cash, Credit Card & COD Businesses
Calculate Your Needs
Capital Sources
Vendors & Customers
Working Capital & Equipment Loans
SBA & CRA Loans
Equity: Angels & VCs

Chapter Five: Running the Business
Nine Startup Strategies
The Specifics of Running Your Business
How Not to Run Your Business
Defining Your Goals & Making Your Company Work
What You Should Focus on Personally
Good Habits for Your Office: The Boiler Room!
Developing Your Talents

Chapter Six: Operations

Chapter Seven: Accounting & Bookkeeping

Chapter Eight: Board, Advisors, Government & Community

Chapter Nine: Growth
24 Marketing & Sales Tips to Make It Happen

Chapter Ten: Marketing
Selling Your Stuff
Faulty Product & Service Concepts
Your Product or Service Concept: The Foundation of Your Firm
Customer Behavior: Correct Positioning
Marketing Message
Categories of Need
Product or Service Selection
Positioning
Pricing, Packaging, Promotion, Advertising & Market Research

Chapter Eleven: Sales
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Sales Leadership
Sales People
Distributors, Resellers & Sales Reps
Direct Sales Reps
The Customer
Web Commerce
Key Account Importance
Key Account Focus
Seven Recommended Approaches

Chapter Twelve: Danger

Chapter Thirteen: Exit
Steady State
Selling Out
Valuation Approaches
Standard Valuation Guidelines
Candidates to Acquire Your Business

Chapter Fourteen: Daily Reports

Chapter Fifteen: Suggested Readings

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 352 KB
• Publisher: www.discountaudiobooks.com; 2.0 edition (March 1, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003AYF3JQ
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled

More About the Author

Deaver graduated with a Magna in History from Harvard College, with his senior thesis being, "Civilizing the Machine: Civil War to 1900." He went on to Harvard Business School (HBS) and concentrated on marketing and operations. "Marketing is how you catch the bear; operations is how you skin him and determine whether you profit or not," says Deaver. One of his favorite quotes is Thorstein Veblen, "The more useless the activity the more it is highly regarded."

Deaver is a serial entrepreneur who has been up, down, and sideways. "This is what makes me a good teacher, writer, and talker. I am a minor league entrepreneur who had some successes, but failures and so/so's too. The great coaches are like that, such as Bill Belichick and Phil Jackson. They can relate to the more average among us because we are too."

His ups included the Umbroller Stroller company sold to Graco and on to Rubbermaid/Newell; refocusing American Power Conversion (APCC) from solar inverters to UPS's for the growing PC business in the 80s and 90s; helping sell Peterson to Cosco, Cosco to an LBO, and Cosco to Doral; and Pride Retail Systems to Compaq and on to HP. He did not succeed with the PumpQuick no pressure fire extinguisher, CD Titles, or Simply Media. He did so/so with Apollo, General Sound, and Westboro, selling them to larger companies.

He wrote his first book, The Entrepreneur's Guide, published by Macmillan and Ballantine in mass market paperback, after selling his interests in the Umbroller Stroller company. Deaver said, "The biggest issue is one's temperament. The more you hire people the more you realize that temperament determines so much. Technical and can do skills are relatively easy to assess. It is the will do skills that are so hard. Temperament is key to 'will do.' He lists 8 core traits to assess in yourself in the book." Deaver, "My favorite letters and emails say, 'I wasted my money; I wasn't fit to be an entrepreneur.' I always write back, 'That is my intention--to save you from it if it doesn't suit. The thank you letters are wonderful.'"

Next he emphasizes the core 4 skills. Deaver, "Most books emphasize markets, financing, and such things. I emphasize the key 4: Sales, Making, Delivering; and getting Paid. Do those 4 right, and everything else is straightforward."

Lessons learned could fill a book--and do! One of his favorite projects was an HBS Case, now widely distributed along with an accompanying video, "Deaver Brown & Cross River." He co wrote this with Professor Amar Bhide at HBS, now at Columbia, on having 10 minutes to sell Kmart, the Walmart of its day, and Macy's. Deaver, "Most students say it is the best case of the year. They learn you either sell something or you don't. As I tell them, most of you won't be selling product or services, but be in the financial area. But think, 'Can this person go into the pit, as in this case, and close the deal. More importantly, can they be tossed out, and come back?'" Only former IBM salespeople closed Deaver when he was in the class acting as a buyer. They were cool, calm, collected, focused, and listened. They also gave the buyer what the buyer needed, not what the salesperson wanted.

Deaver Commented, "Amar asks for volunteers and often has a tough time getting them. When my cofounder at Umbroller, and old friend Alex Levitch came to class to observe, he said it best, 'If you don't want to volunteer, leave the class. If you don't want to pitch, you'll never make it. If you worry what others think, you'll never make it.' Perfect advice."

Deaver said he recommended students in their careers as investors recalling who could pitch or couldn't, and thinking about how a prospective candidate would do in that situation--based on his experience with his Harvard tutor, Neil Harris, later Chairman of the History Department at University of Chicago. "Neil would read my work out loud and lift an eyebrow at the appropriate moments. I always think about that eyebrow when reading my own work."

"Also, Neil was the poster boy for learning. He invited me to one of his lectures when he used my material to bolster his analysis. He winked at me when doing so. Neil was always learning, as we all should."

"Commencement is the beginning not the end of learning. I read 80 books per year which the Kindle makes so much easier and less expensive, not to speak of Amazon's audible.com that does so for audiobooks at iTunes and Amazon. We also have them at www.discountaudiobooks.com."

"Each work has other suggestions. No one has the final answer, except the not very smart. There is always more," says Deaver.

Picture: "I am the shorter guy standing up. An impromptu gathering of friends at the 40th Reunion at HBS, for lunch at Anthony's Pier 4. Read; have fun; share with friends. The picture says it all for me and I hope for you too."